Before in Front
Ratio 3 is pleased to present an exhibition of new photographs by Miriam Böhm. The exhibition will be on view from November 9th through December 14th, 2012.
Miriam Böhm is recognized for producing photographic images of complex, physical arrangements staged in the studio setting. The photographed arrangements are printed, mounted, placed back into the studio set and photographed again and again. The end result achieves echoing forms and disorienting shifts of perspective. Böhm’s playful approach of materiality combined with formal studio techniques create an illusory effect which often confounds the viewer’s point of view.
Böhm’s work appeals to the broadening of traditional photographic parameters by creating a dialog of interpretation between documentation and reproduction. In looking at Böhm's photographs, the viewer is forced to engage in the process of deconstructing the pictorial narrative in order to discover what is real and what is reproduced. The elegant trompe l’oeil effect of Böhm’s compositions destabilize the way we look at photography. What initially looks and feels like a nondescript object placed in the foreground of a simple space unveils its complexity between foreground, background, form and subject. Through this process of manipulation Böhm has developed a visual vocabulary uniquely her own.
This is Böhm’s second solo exhibition at Ratio 3, and a fully illustrated catalogue with an essay by Matthew Thompson will accompany the exhibition. The catalogue is co-published by Ratio 3, Wentrup Gallery (Berlin), and Distanz, Germany.
Miriam Böhm was born in 1972. Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive. Recently her work was a part of the traveling exhibition The Anxiety of Photography, organized by the Aspen Art Museum. Böhm currently lives and works in Mannheim and Berlin, Germany.